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The Mercury<\/p>\n
Accountant Antony Marais (at the back) walks out of the commercial court with one of the legal team members.Photo: Zanele Zulu<\/p>\n
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Durban – The uncle of a Durban North chartered accountant, who was duped into investing R1 million in a failed opportunity, said the investment had sounded \u201ctoo good to be true\u201d, but he had trusted his nephew\u2019s advice. <\/p>\n
Last Friday, accountant Antony Marais sat quietly in the dock of the Commercial Crime Court as his uncle Douglas Retief, of Cape Town, described how he had invested in a development venture despite initial concerns that the investment was a scam. <\/p>\n
According to the charge sheet, Marais, whose office was in Enniskillen Crescent, is charged with seven counts of fraud amounting to R6m. It is alleged he had a pattern of \u201crolling funds\u201d and withdrew money for his personal use. <\/p>\n
Retief, who lost R1m, said Marais had called him in March 2010 to discuss an investment opportunity. The investment involved providing bridging finance to a company to enable it to complete a property development. <\/p>\n
The company was offering a 3-percent monthly dividend for a six-month period and thereafter the capital would be repaid. <\/p>\n
\u201cI asked him if it was a scam given the good returns, but he reassured me by saying he was also investing in it. <\/p>\n
\u201cI trusted my nephew and held him in high regard in terms of professionalism.\u201d <\/p>\n
Retief said he got his dividend payouts for five months. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe sixth payment never happened and I never got my capital. He (Marais) gave me a litany of stories about why the payment was being delayed. He said there were issues with VAT refunds to the company and the money coming from other sources.\u201d <\/p>\n
Asked by Marais\u2019s attorney, Satch Morgan, if he knew high returns often came with high risks, Retief said he had been assured there was no risk in the investment. <\/p>\n
\u201cI do accept there are risks with high returns. But I was given absolute assurance there was no risk. Otherwise I would not have touched it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Retief admitted he had not asked Marais about the financial affairs of the company he was investing in. <\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps I was naive, but I trusted his discretion. I was hoping to boost my savings fund to pay for my daughter\u2019s overseas studies, I took the money out of my home access bond because of the confidence I had in him.\u201d <\/p>\n
Accountant Michael Rogers testified that he had invested R1m of his clients\u2019 money with Marais in what he described as a \u201cgilt-edged investment\u201d to get \u201cbetter returns\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy clients wanted to earn a bit more than what the bank offered. One of them was a widow who could not survive on what she was getting. He (Marais) struck me as an honest person and it seemed like a good investment because it was backed by an accountant.\u201d <\/p>\n
Rogers said things went sour after only about two dividend payments were received. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were promises and promises, but nothing was paid. We got a court judgment for the full amount and we later found there were other creditors that monies had been promised to.\u201d <\/p>\n
Rogers said he paid back his clients out of his own pocket. <\/p>\n
Asked by Morgan if there was a legal obligation to pay the investors, Rogers said it was not required. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not a legal obligation,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a moral obligation. That is what the accountancy profession demands. I do not guarantee investments, but I believe you ought to exercise the integrity that is expected of us.\u201d <\/p>\n
The case has been adjourned to next week. <\/p>\n
kamini.padayachee@inl.co.za <\/p>\n
The Mercury<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Mercury Accountant Antony Marais (at the back) walks out of the commercial court with one of the legal team members.Photo: Zanele Zulu Durban – The uncle of a Durban North chartered accountant, who was duped into investing R1 million in a failed opportunity, said the investment had sounded \u201ctoo good to be true\u201d, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-21315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}